Hiroshima (Mass Market Paperback)

I lived in Japan for nearly a decade and was astounded at how little the average Japanese knew about Japan's wartime atrocities. This is due, no doubt, in part to the fact that the war is little mentioned in Japanese school textbooks. Moreover, the Hiroshima "Peace" Museum has absolutely no information on Japan's aggressive actions during the war. While I feel for the victims of the bomb, I also feel for the victims of the Japanese Army. It saddens me that the average Japanese has forgotten the victims of Japan's war campaign and instead chooses to wallow in self-pity over losing the war.

The most important thing I would like to say here is not making a protest like an anti-war campaigner but urging people to understand how the people of Hiroshima died manly in extraordinary serenity.
How was it possible when they were dying after experiencing such a hell on earth that is beyond description?

A survivor, Mr. Tanimoto wrote to his American friend just before the anniversary: gI never heard any one cried in disorder, even though they suffered in great agony. They died in silence, with no grudge, setting their teeth to bear it. All for the country!h

One of those who died after Mr. Tanimoto gave water in the first night told him: gLook, I lost my home, my family, and at last my-self bitterly injured. But, now I have gotted (sic) my mind to dedicate what I have and to complete the war for our country's sake.h gThus,h Mr. Tanimoto continues, gthey pledged to me, even women and children did the same.h
Mr. Tanimoto tells in his letter of a school girl and her friends who were buried under heavy fence of a temple after the explosion of the bomb. gThey could not move a bit under such a heavy fence and then smoke entered into even a crack and choked their breath.
One of the girls begun to sing `Kimi ga yo', national anthem, and others followed in chorus and died. Meanwhile one of them found a crack and struggled hard to get out.... They were just 13 years old.h

Mr. Tanimoto also mentioned Dr. Hiraiwa, professor of Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, who was buried by the bomb under the two storied house with his son, a student of Tokyo University.
gBoth of them could not move an inch under tremendously heavy pressure. And the house already caught fire. His son said, `Father, we can do nothing except make our mind up to consecrate our lives for the country. Let us give Banzai to our Emperor.'
Then the father followed after his son, `Tenno-heika (His Imperial Majesty the Tenno), Banzai, Banzai, Banzai!'
In the result, Dr. Hiraiwa said, `Strange to say, I felt calm and bright and peaceful spirit in my heart, when I chanted Banzai to Tenno.' Afterward his son got out and digged (sic) down and pulled out his father and thus they were saved. In thinking of their experience of that time Dr. Hiraiwa repeated;
gWhat a fortunate that we are Japanese! It was my first time I ever tasted such a beautiful spirit when I decided to die for our Emperor.h

gYes,h Mr. Tanimoto says, gpeople of Hiroshima died manly in the atomic bombing, believing that it was for Emperor's sake.h

As Hersey says, many hibakusha have repelled by the growing political coloration of these anti-nuclear movements such as the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs and have stayed away from the mass meeting s in Peace Park on the subsequent anniversaries.
Why? I think it is clear when you see that those anti-nuclea‚' weapon/ anti-war campaigners are often also of left-wing thoughts such as, particularly, as many comintern sympathisers that still survived in Japan put as their slogan, gAbolish the Tenno system!h, or even gKill the Tenno for the war responsibility!h

If you are a Japanese, you may instinctively know that this greligioush feelings of the Japanese towards Tenno is much more native than foreign communists have thought and has its roots in the depth of the Japanese spiritual culture itself that has been formulated for thousands of years in Japan's history. In Japanese mythology, the Japanese islands and other gods were gbornh from a couple of gods, and those first gods were the ancestor of whole Japanese.
So, in other words, the Tenno household is the head family of every household of the Japanese.
To prevent misunderstanding, I must say that this is not "elitism" or emphasis of the uniqueness of the Japanese like the left wingers criticise.
On the contrary, it is rather "universality" of the whole world that the father of all Tenno, or, more adequately, of all Japanese, said: "Hakko-Ichiu"___ "Let us make the whole world one family."

That is, I think, one reason why the memorial of the Peace Park in Hiroshima engraved: gPlease rest in peace, for we will never make the same mistakeh, not aggressive and vengeful gRemember Hiroshima!!h

To justify these horrible gcrimes against the humanityh, two experimental and exhibitionistic atomic bombings and 60 other indiscriminate incendiary bombings on civilian population, the U.S.A. needed to brand Japan as the evil criminal country as the Nazi Germany might be.
They fabricated numerous horrible crimes that never verified in the Tokyo Trial as the Dutch judge B.V.A. Roling criticized in the book gTokyo Trial and Beyondh so that the Allied Powers, especially the U.S.A. and the Soviet Russia and China, can avert their own war crimes get attention.
The 7 year occupation of Japan by the Allied (the U.S.A., mainly) with a brain-washing scheme called gWar Guilt Information Programmeh effectively gdisarmedh the Japanese fighting spirit and by that Japan was so effectively and openly labeled as gFascist/Militarist/Imperialisth country that every Japanese who try to refute those accusations are branded by the whole world as a gultra-right-wing revisionisth.

But, Herseyfs book made me realise that, fortunately, the Japanese spirits were never destroyed after all these persecution for half a century. It might have been expelled to a small corner of the bottom of hearts of the Japanese, but surely it has survived.
I felt it in my heart. And I believe many Japanese would feel the same when they read this great book of human spirits that never be destroyed even by the most powerful weapons on Earth.